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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034813">Voices in the Desert</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi'>The_Last_Kenobi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Force Ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, Gen, Hallucinations, Loneliness, Obi-Wan Kenobi Has PTSD, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, Protective Qui-Gon Jinn, Self-Blame, Self-Hatred, Trauma, Whump, Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:00:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,078</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoda told Obi-Wan that he could learn to speak with the Ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, so that he could keep learning while in exile. So that he wouldn't be alone.<br/>Obi-Wan... talks to Qui-Gon.<br/>Nothing is simple.</p><p> </p><p>Written for Whumptober 2020<br/>Day 16 - Hallucinations</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn &amp; Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>168</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Voices in the Desert</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>Obi-Wan puttered around his tiny, sand-dusted home, making tea.</p><p>It wasn’t much.</p><p>He had run out of real tea leaves years ago, back before his hair had lost the last of its ruddy gold hue. Sometime back in his forties.</p><p>At fifty-four, Obi-Wan was much frailer and more tired than he had imagined he would be.</p><p>The trauma of feeling ten thousand of his people die, of walking through his home and finding it littered with corpses of the brave and the helpless, and of throwing his traitorous brother to the flames—well, he reasoned that something like that was bound to age a man beyond his years.</p><p>The winds and suns of Tatooine likely had not aided, either.</p><p>So he made tea from cheap, dry-flavored packets he bartered for at the market every three months, sometimes sweetened and strengthened with spices and honeys he had stored away.</p><p>Obi-Wan watched the steam rise from the cracking, worn-out kettle, rising in wisps on the dry air and dispersed so quickly. He waved a dry, tired hand through the steam, pretending that the moisture was helping his aging, sand-hardened skin.</p><p>“Tea?” said a familiar voice.</p><p>Obi-Wan smiled, but didn’t turn. “Naturally.”</p><p>“And then what will you do?” Qui-Gon asked gently, his voice a low rumble. Obi-Wan knew that the man was seated at his small table, a low circular thing of sanded stone with two chairs. One for the dead Master, and one for the aging Padawan.</p><p>“Oh…” Obi-Wan mused. “I think I’ll go down to the krayt dragon nest today. One of the nesting mothers may need assistance…she seems ill. And I’ll check on Luke on the way back.”</p><p>The kettle began to crackle, close to boiling.</p><p>“Hmm.” Qui-Gon intoned.</p><p>Obi-Wan kept watching the kettle, the steam. Let it fill his vison, this tiny fragment of a dusty corner of an enormous universe. If he just kept watching, everything would be fine—</p><p>“Krayt dragons. Nesting mothers. Looking at Luke, from a distance. Nothing more.”</p><p>Obi-Wan hovered his hand over the kettle handle, waiting. Waiting.</p><p>The kettle began to hum.</p><p>“And all of this nothing, for what?” Qui-Gon’s voice was suddenly much closer. Right behind Obi-Wan. The warm rumble was darker, now, more foreboding. Like the tone he used when Obi-Wan was in serious trouble, or when Qui-Gon was facing down a foe.</p><p>“Master—”</p><p>“You promised me, Obi-Wan. You swore. You told me you would train the Chosen One, and look what you did. You betrayed and abandoned him. You led the galaxy to the slaughter, and now what do you do?”</p><p>The kettle screeched.</p><p>Before Obi-Wan could grab it, two hands grabbed <em>him</em> and wheeled him around.</p><p>He was face to face with Qui-Gon Jinn in his full fury—towering tall, face pale, eyes burning, mouth twisted downwards in the faint beginnings of a frown. “You hide,” he said condemningly. “You hide here, you refuse to take responsibility or action. Even Xanatos had more gumption. Even Anakin had more courage, at the end.”</p><p>Obi-Wan closed his eyes.</p><p>The kettle wailed and rattled on the burner.</p><p>Hot steam billowed against the back of his neck as Qui-Gon loomed over him, holding him in place.</p><p>“It should have been you,” Qui-Gon said simply. Fairly. “On Naboo. On Jabiim. Zyggeria. Anywhere, really. You refused to die, and you killed the galaxy instead. Well done, Padawan. You truly are a survivor.”</p><p>“Master—” Obi-Wan gasped. Not surprised, but still hurting.</p><p>“I know that you know this, Obi-Wan,” his Master scolded him. Like he delivered many a lecture or rebuke so very long ago, back when they had truly been Master and Padawan. Before Qui-Gon died. Before Obi-Wan failed. “You’ve known for a long time. And when you walked through the Temple that day, stepping over corpses, and when you failed to defeat or kill Anakin on Mustafar, you did nothing. You failed. Again.”</p><p>Obi-Wan took a rattling breath.</p><p>The kettle was screaming and screaming.</p><p>Precious water was dissolving into the air.</p><p>Gone.</p><p>“And now you sit here in the desert and grow weak. I warned you. I warned you when you were twelve that you were not suited to be a Jedi, but you insisted. Well done, Padawan. Well done.”</p><p>Obi-Wan choked on air, coughed, and then dissolved into dry sobs.</p><p>Qui-Gon released his shoulders, and Obi-Wan collapsed to his knees, gasping and crying without tears.</p><p>The kettle shook and screeched and spewed steam.</p><p>Obi-Wan stared at his hands, palms resting on the sand-coated floor, and felt himself shake and heave. He longed for tears, but he had none to give. He needed water, needed the tea, and didn’t have the strength to stand and get them.</p><p>“You’re right,” he gasped. “Master, I’m sorry—”</p><p>“So are the dead,” Qui-Gon said from somewhere above him. “So is the Chosen One. <em>Be</em> sorry, Obi-Wan.” A heavy, familiar hand settled, falsely comforting, on top of Obi-Wan’s hair, bleached white by time and the suns. “Be sorry. I’ll return tomorrow.”</p><p>Obi-Wan dared not look up at that disappointed, burning-eyed face again.</p><p>He waited until the hand vanished, and the air grew lighter.</p><p>The kettle was merely whimpering now, sputtering, almost dry.</p><p>When Obi-Wan looked up, the kitchen was empty.</p><p>He staggered to his feet, still gasping, and picked up the crying kettle and moved it to the countertop.</p><p>It scalded his fingers. He didn’t care.</p><p>The old man picked up the kettle again, letting it burn him, and tilted it over his mug. A small splash of boiling liquid fell to the bottom and sat there pitifully. A shaking hand dropped a teabag into it, watching as the water quickly darkened, too much tea to too little water, and too hot.</p><p>And he drank it, letting the revolting sludge blister his throat.</p><p>Still, no tears came.</p><p> </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>Qui-Gon Jinn stood beside Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was crying.</p><p><em>It’s just a hallucination, Obi-Wan</em>, he cried. </p><p>
  <em>It’s not real, it isn’t me, it’s just you—oh, Obi-Wan, please hear me, please! You’ve been doing this for so long. You must stop. You have to hear me! You’re hallucinating, this isn’t what Yoda wanted you to learn!</em>
</p><p><br/>But Obi-Wan didn’t hear the real Qui-Gon.</p><p>Too lost in his own guilt, he discarded the dirtied mug, pulled on his cloak and lifted the cowl over his face, and walked out into the desert.</p><p>To return tomorrow, to grapple with his own demons, utterly deaf to his Master grieving invisible by his side.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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